Abed al-Hamid Abu Srour has just become the first suicide bomber in years. While others in the local refugee camp celebrate and Hamas hails its new martyr, his parents veer from bitterness to denial to blaming Israel

AL-AYDA REFUGEE CAMP, Bethlehem — We enter al-Ayda refugee camp on foot. We’re on the northern edge of Bethlehem, close to the security barrier and Rachel’s Tomb. Graffiti on one of the walls proclaims this “the State of al-Ayda refugee camp,” underlining its separation from the rest of the world.

There are posters on the walls every few meters showing the “martyr” Abed al-Hamid Abu Srour, 19, who carried out last Monday’s suicide bombing on the No. 12 bus in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood. Twenty Israelis were injured, one of them critically — a 15-year-old Israeli girl, Eden Dadon. Abu Srour was the only fatality.

The posters show a good-looking youngster wearing a bright Giorgio Armani shirt. Most of the posters here do not carry the symbols of any Palestinian organization — a kind of retort, perhaps, to posters issued by Hamas that announced the bomber was one of them.... Read More: Times of Israel